REST Vs SOAP

SOAP is a protocol whereas REST is architecture.

SOAP exposes behavior which represent logic whereas REST exposes resources which represent data.

 
In terms of consumption REST service is much simpler than SOAP. With REST overhead of handling XML envelops is eliminated which makes it more fast as
compare to SOAP.
 
SOAP provided good security options as compared to REST.
 
For machine to machine interaction & enterprise solutions SOAP is preferable but for public facing API’s REST is best option almost 70% public API’s are REST.
 
REST is lightweight, maintainable & scalable.
 
REST is device independent i.e. client consuming REST API can be anything like Mobile devices, Notebooks, TV etc.
 
With the cloud coming in action. Application is slowly moving to cloud based systems such as Azure, Amazon AWS. These systems are build and exposing REST API’s. Hence it is a good moveto build application on the top of the REST API.